


Marauders' mayhem

by melian225



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: HPFT, Gen, Gryffindor Halloween challenge, Halloween, Haunted Houses, Humor, Humour, Marauders, Marauders Friendship, Marauders' Era, Pranks and Practical Jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 02:59:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8428804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melian225/pseuds/melian225
Summary: It's Hallowe'en and, bereft of jobs to do for the Order, the Marauders are getting bored. So what better to break the monotony than a little prank on the inhabitants of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place?**Winner of the HPFT Gryffindor common room Hallowe'en challenge**





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was written to a prompt and a time limit, and my muse wasn't being particularly productive. So, it's not my best work. It was supposed to be either horror or humour, and I'm not sure that it's either, but hey, it's now done and before the deadline. :) Should my muse oblige I may make changes to it in future, but at the moment this is how it stands and this is how I'm leaving it. Thanks for being understanding!

“Hallowe’en’s this Friday,” James said nonchalantly. “Any ideas?”

“Something big,” Sirius said. “I’m getting bored sitting around waiting for Dumbledore. Let’s have some fun for once.”

“We have fun all the time,” Peter said. “Well, when Lily lets Prongs out, we do.”

“Which is hardly ever,” Sirius said. “Come on, let’s do something really memorable.”

Remus raised his eyebrows. “Like what?”

“I dunno. Find an old house somewhere and convince the Muggles next door that it’s haunted? Or, even better, find and old house somewhere and convince the Muggles who live there that it’s haunted.” His eyes shone with anticipation.

Remus frowned. “I don’t know. With all the Muggle-baiting going on, do we really want to add to the panic?”

Sirius waved a hand impatiently. “Oh, we’ll let on at the end that it’s all a joke. Just need to keep it up for a couple of hours, that’s all.”

James was frowning too. “Doesn’t need to be Muggles, does it?”

Sirius’ eyes lit up even more. “That’s it! We’ll do my parents’ place. That’d be hilarious.”

James nodded, a grin lighting up his face, but then frowned again. “Can we even get in? Haven’t they sealed it against you?”

“Nah, I can get past that. I know every spell they use to hide that place, I should be able to sort out the counter-jinx.”

“Well, if you’re sure.” James smiled broadly. “Making Grimmauld Place a haunted house. I’m in!”

“So, what do we want to do?” Peter asked. “Ghosts, banshees, zombies?”

James looked confused. “What are zombies?”

“I keep forgetting you don’t know Muggle terms,” Remus said with a grin. “Inferi, essentially. Reanimated corpses.”

“Right. And what do Muggles call them again?”

Remus laughed. “Zombies. You go into a Muggle bookshop, it’s full of zombie stories. People like the horror aspect.”

“Weird. Guess they’ve never seen real Inferi, then,” James said.

Sirius raised his eyebrows. “And how many of us have, mate? Until Voldemort started resurrecting them the other month, they weren’t exactly common.”

“Yes, okay, fair point.” James threw up his arms in surrender. “Right, so what have we decided on? Inferi, or whatever Moony called them, maybe a couple of banshees and some ghosts?”

“Ghosts, definitely,” Sirius said. “Wormtail, you can do basic charms nonverbally, can’t you?”

Peter looked disdainfully at him. “I’m not completely useless, Padfoot.” And the apple he was eating started levitating.

“Good, good,” said James. “Poltergeists can disappear, can’t they? Because that will be a good excuse to have the silverware flying around. Oh, and some spiders – isn’t your mum afraid of them, Padfoot?”

Sirius nodded. “I’m doing a bat-bogey hex on Kreacher,” he added. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”

Peter frowned. “Kreacher?”

“The house-elf. Nose like a pig’s, it’s going to look hilarious.”

“What else?” Remus asked. “Skeletons?”

“Should be heaps in the cupboards,” Sirius muttered. “Oh, you mean real ones? We can just conjure some, can’t we?”

James nodded. “Yeah, it’s only for a couple of hours. Conjuring should be fine. And we’ll animate them with Locomotor spells.”

“I guess the same goes for anything else,” Remus said. “Vampires, for example, or wraiths. They don’t need to be super convincing, do they?”

“Precisely,” James said. “It’ll just be Sirius’ mum and dad there, they won’t be looking too hard at anything I shouldn’t think.”

“And Reg,” Sirius said suddenly. “He didn’t go back to school this year, joined the Death Eaters instead.” He scowled. “Stupid idiot. But yeah, if he’s not off doing Voldemort’s bidding, he’ll be there too.”

James’ face lit up. “Reg too? Oh, this is going to be SO much fun.”

****

“Now I’ll warn you,” Sirius said as they approached Grimmauld Place, “it looks like a Slytherin shrine. Serpents everywhere, a hollowed troll’s foot for an umbrella stand. There’s even a delightful tradition of beheading old house elves and mounting them on the wall.”

James looked revolted. “And you had to _live_ there?”

“Yeah. And you wonder why I like your place better. Anyway, here’s the set-up.” And he talked them through what they could expect to see in each room, and what enchantments were in place. “Now naturally we can’t let them see us, otherwise they’ll know it’s all a set-up, and we only have one Invisibility Cloak. Disillusionment Charms will only get us so far, so here are the best hiding places …”

Inside Number Twelve, Walburga Black was scanning the bookshelf in the drawing room. “Jigger … Umfraville … Ah, here it is.” She pulled a small white-bound book from the shelf, almost dislodging _Nature’s Nobility_ in the process. Glowering, she summoned the house-elf.

He appeared immediately. “What does Mistress need?”

“These shelves are intolerably disorganised. You will rearrange them into some kind of recognisable order. At least make yourself useful _somehow._ ” And without looking at him once, she left the room.

Regulus was with Orion in the dining room, his left arm bleeding. “Are you sure you don’t know the spell they used?” Orion asked again. “If you did, we could find the counter-curse.”

“I’ve told you, I don’t know,” Regulus said irritably. “They said it was an initiation, that’s all.”

Walburga swept into the room, brandishing _The Healer’s Helpmate_. “I have it. Useless, I don’t doubt, but it can hardly do worse than that infernal house-elf.”

“Be fair, Mother,” Regulus said. “He tried, at least.”

“Pfft.” Walburga was unimpressed. “What’s the use of house-elves having their own magic if they can’t fix this?” She tossed the book at her husband. “Find a counter-spell.”

Orion thumbed through the book, eventually pausing at a page near the middle. Pointing his wand at his son’s arm, he muttered a few words and the wound started healing itself.

Walburga smiled, satisfied, until the curtains at the front of the room started emitting a soft whistling sound. “Infernal elf!” she seethed. “Left a window open again.”

Orion put the book down and went to investigate. “That’s odd.”

“What’s odd?”

“The windows are closed. There’s nowhere for a draught to be getting in.”

“Nonsense,” Walburga said. “Check again. They must be open somewhere.”

Suddenly there was a loud crash above their heads, and a howl of pain from Kreacher. Still in his bloody robes, Regulus hurried upstairs.

“What happened?” he asked when he saw the carnage in the drawing room. The bookcase was on its side, almost burying the house-elf, who appeared to be suffering from a bat-bogey hex.

Kreacher looked terrified. “Kreacher didn’t do it, Master Regulus! The bookcase – it just fell! By itself!”

“I never thought you did it,” Regulus said shortly. “You can get rid of the bats, though. And what happened to the writing-desk?”

“Moved across the floor by itself, Master Regulus,” Kreacher said, picking up a book and crashing it into his own face, a punishment for some self-imagined transgression. Bat-sized bogeys continued to orbit his face.

“By itself?” Regulus was doubtful. “Kreacher, I don’t know what you’re doing here …”

He was interrupted by the same whistling sound he’d heard downstairs, and watched in amazement as the writing desk crossed the floor by itself until it stood before the family tapestry on the far wall. Then, all of a sudden, it changed into a turtle and began wandering around the floor.

Regulus froze, Kreacher’s howls ignored. “Mother,” he called hesitantly, “is there any history in this house of a poltergeist?”

Walburga came into the room and surveyed the damage. “Poltergeist? Certainly not.” She turned to Kreacher, who was still beating himself with _Nature’s Nobility_. “Kreacher, what is this?”

Her voice was like thunder and the elf shuddered. “It wasn’t me, Mistress,” he said in between blows. “It did it itself!”

“Ridiculous.” Her sharp eyes flicked around the room, and settled on a slight bulge in the curtains. “Aha,” she said, walking swiftly over and flinging them open. A triumphant exclamation gave way to a shriek, however, when a rat appeared and promptly hightailed it across the room and out the door.

“KREACHER!!”

“Yes, Mistress?”

“Why was there a RAT in my drawing room? I thought your job was to keep vermin out of the house?”

The miserable house-elf resumed thumping himself with the book as he trundled after the rat, which had disappeared down the stairs. Regulus turned to watch it, then gave a start.

“What is it, child?”

“A Grim.” Regulus swallowed audibly. “Coming up from the kitchen.”

“A Grim? Nonsense!” She started down the stairs herself, then stopped. At the foot was a huge black dog, fangs exposed, saliva dripping from its mouth as it growled.

“It’s a …” She faltered, then recovered. After all, Walburga Black didn’t panic. “It can’t be a Grim, Regulus, because I can see it too.”

“I can too.” Orion had come out of the dining room and was staring at the back of the beast. It growled again, then turned and disappeared down the stairs.

The floors above exploded in a cacophony of noises. Feeling distinctly shaken, Walburga climbed to the next landing. Through the open door to the spare room she saw a jack-o-lantern on the bed, its grotesque face leering lopsidedly at them. Protruding from one eye was a knife, as though an invisible carver was interrupted at work.

Another rat – or was it the same one? – emerged from under the bed, squeaking loudly and rushing between her legs towards the stairs again. At the same time, a wraith-like figure flew into the room, nearly colliding with her.

“Mother,” Regulus called, his voice unsteady. “Mother, what’s going on?”

Orion joined her on the landing. “Are you sure this place isn’t haunted?” he asked quietly. “There were those stories, remember, Great-Uncle Arcturus used to tell.”

“Nonsense,” she repeated, more firmly than she felt. “Just fables to frighten the children. Nothing more.” She didn’t answer Regulus’ question. She didn’t know how.

It was harder to assume a brave face when in her own bedchamber she saw a coffin and a tombstone engraved with her name, a ghost floating above it that resembled her more than she wanted to admit. And when a vampire calmly descended the stairs and asked for a glass of blood, she gave in.

“Kreacher, get this gentleman some blood. And then leave me alone for the remainder of the evening.”

Kreacher, still suffering from the bat-bogey hex, ran headfirst into the troll’s-foot umbrella stand and sent umbrellas and walking sticks flying. Regulus tripped over one and went sprawling towards the kitchen stairs.

Orion found her weeping on the bed an hour later. The house was a wreck – Inferi on Regulus’ bed, skeletons dangling from the chandeliers, the Grim and the mouse either multiplying or able to appear in several places at once.  Orb spiders had woven silken webs around the curtains, and a family of banshees had set up in the dining room, apparently awaiting their supper.

“I’m not afraid,” she said stubbornly, sitting up and wiping her wet cheeks with a handkerchief. “I was merely taken aback.”

“It’s alright to be afraid,” he said gently.

“It’s not. Blacks are not frightened by such trifles.”

Orion laughed hollowly. “There’s a vampire in the kitchen and banshees in the dining room. Your own grave is in the corner of this room and a Grim is roving around. It’s natural to be frightened.”

She shook her head. “And Regulus?”

“Hiding out downstairs.”

“Why didn’t the enchantments work?”

Orion hesitated. “What if I pointed out they only work on the living?”

She faltered. “Why are they here? Why us? Why now?”

Regulus’ voice clove the silence. “Mother! Father! You might want to see this.”

Helped to her feet by Orion, Walburga left her chamber and descended to the drawing room, where Regulus was standing in the doorway. Hovering in the air, obscuring the tapestry, were the words:

_Tricked you! Happy Hallowe’en, Mother._

She drew herself up to her full height and blasted the ribboned script away. “That INFERNAL child! However did he get in?” Seething, she turned around, looking for someone to blame.

“KREACHER!!!!!”

 


End file.
